1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to well known plastic molded generally flexible ice cube trays and more particularly to such a tray having protruberances on opposing corners of each individual ice cube forming pocket to alter the ice cube upon its release from the tray to the extent that it will not be reseated in the tray in its as-molded orientation.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Flexible plastic ice cube trays are well known in the prior art. Such flexible trays have the advantage of being relatively inexpensively molded from a plastic such as polypropylene that easily releases the ice cubes once the initial adhesion force established during freezing is broken. To do this, the tray is generally grasped at each end and twisted to the extent there is sufficient flexing of each individual pocket to release the cube. However, after such flexing, if the cubes are to remain in the tray as opposed to the tray being dumped into a separate storage bin, the cubes settle back into their respective pockets and assume the as-molded orientation providing generally continuous smooth surfaces between the tray and the ice cubes making it difficult to manually grasp any individual cube to remove it.
One manner of altering the cube orientation with respect to the pocket of an ice cube tray is to utilize the expansive forces of freezing to move the cube to an accessible position with respect to the tray while it remains therein. Such is shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,025,682 and 2,704,927.
The present invention however, provides certain stress concentrating structure in each pocket so that upon flexing the tray each individual cube is caused to fracture to the extent its outward dimension is altered so that it will not be reseated in its as-molded orientation. This produces a generally discontinuous surface between the cubes and the tray permitting each cube to be individually grasped.